


The Traces of These Constellations

by komiv



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Flash Fic, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Poetry, Pre-Mass Effect 2, Prose Poem
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-16 02:29:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5810074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/komiv/pseuds/komiv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every life leaves an imprint on the world left behind. A collection of drabbles and one-shots featuring the crew of the Normandy, past and present.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. vanishing points (kaidan)

**Author's Note:**

> Well, here we have the inevitable drabble collection so I don't spam the archive with a million little flash pieces and unattached AU things. Chapters will be marked with POV/AU/etc as relevant. Other than that....we'll see where this goes. 
> 
> First entry is a repost of [vanishing points](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5784067) for the sake of having everything in one place. Everything that follows will be new content.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Alchera, Kaidan remembers the Commander's last words.

He still remembers the last words the Commander said to him. They replay as a litany in his mind, a dark dream punctuated by flashes of fire and sparking emergency lights.

_“Distress beacon is ready for launch.”_

He remembers the praise for managing to save so many of the crew, the promotion he never felt he deserved, the reward that should have gone to someone else. The claps on his shoulders feel like knives in his back, commendations for breaking the first rule the Commander made after Virmire: no one gets left behind again.

_“The Alliance won’t abandon us.”_

He remembers beige walls, white halls, and a never ending stream of just-one-more-question. They want to know how he feels about what happened, if the psychological strain has finally proven too much, if he needs to be quietly discharged with honors before he becomes a problem they actually have to deal with.

_“We just need to hold on.”_

He remembers months passing without notice, a message authorizing his return to light duty, an assignment to a desk job on Arcturus Station. They say how much they look forward to working with an officer of his experience, how his input would be more than welcome in their new recruiting drive featuring none other than the Commander herself, how no one needs to go spreading inflammatory rumors of Reapers when everyone knows the geth that attacked the Citadel are already gone.

_“Get everyone to the escape shuttles.”_

He remembers sending dozens of unanswered emails, taking leave and a shuttle to the Citadel, storming into the Embassy and demanding to speak to Councilor Anderson in person. They tell him the Councilor is a very busy man, but will certainly address his concern when time allows, if he will just leave his name and contact information and kindly leave the Embassy before they call security.

_“I need you to get the crew onto the evac shuttles.”_

He remembers a single message in his inbox, a request to meet at a club in the Wards, a back room and an ex-Captain’s promise to intervene if he’ll only keep his head down like he used to be so good at doing. They contact him later to inform him of a take-it-or-leave-it offer, a team and a recon assignment, a chance to get back in the field before his hair turns grey or the Reapers-that-don’t-exist destroy the entire galaxy.

_“I’ll take care of Joker.”_

He remembers the names of the marines assigned to his team, the files reviewed until he can recite them without looking, until he feels like he might manage to be half the commander that the Commander had been. They assemble in the loading bay of the ship assigned for their mission, as he introduces himself and gives his lieutenant their first orders, as the Alliance gives him his one last chance.

_“Kaidan. Go. Now!”_

“Aye, aye," he says.


	2. breath; to breathe (ambiguous)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Normandy SR-1 isn't the only thing falling to pieces over Alchera.

In space, they say, no one can hear you scream.

 

No one else, that is.

Sure, it still echoes off the walls of your mind the same as always, whether you’re flat on the ground or spiraling out into the void. But it stays on the inside, never breaking out because there’s no air left to give it breath.

 

You can still hear her yelling at you over the comm to go on ahead, because the hull of the ship has already ruptured and anything like atmosphere has long since fled.

You yell at her to follow, but she’s already headed back.

No one gets left behind, she says.

What about you? you want to ask.

You don’t.

Don’t take too long, you say instead.

She doesn’t answer.

 

You see the second beam cleave what’s left of the ship into pieces.

You see the last shuttle zip away from the wreckage, bullet from a gun about to fall into an inferno over Alchera’s sky.

She made it, you think.

She had to have made it.

 

You see her silhouetted against the starlit glow of the planet below, twisted, reaching.

She didn’t make it.

She’s reaching back—reaching _for_ her back—like something’s wrong—like she can’t breathe—

 

Then she’s falling, and then _you_ can’t breathe, because escape pod walls and windows are too strong to break out and catch her, and no matter how much you pound the glass, it doesn’t break and

You can’t breathe.

 

In space, they say, no one can hear you scream.

They’re wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Initially had a character in mind when I wrote this, but...fill in who seems most fitting for you.


	3. show me the horizon, I'll show you the sun (kaidan)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ho-ri-zon  
> noun  
> 1\. the line at which the earth’s surface and the sky appear to meet.  
> 2\. the limit of a person’s mental perception, experience, or interest.  
> 3\. the place where things change.

This is their horizon: the one where the earth meets the sky.

If Kaidan is the Earth, then Shepard is the Sky, and though they meet for a moment on Horizon, Shepard will always soar while Kaidan remains grounded.

In another place, in another time, the earth might come loose from its moorings and join the sky as it ascends, but earth has mired itself in duty and stability, and its tethers hold fast.

For a moment the space between them bursts into gradient color as the sun rises and sets, but the sky never lands and, and wish though it might, the earth will never fly.

Under the looming shadows of Cerberus and the Collectors, Shepard walks away and Kaidan doesn’t follow.

\--

This is their horizon: the one where perception reaches its limit.

The court martial is closed door and confidential, but the assembly calls Kaidan in to testify on the character of his former Commander. He stands as a witness and recounts his experiences from the SSV Normandy SR-1, of the fight against Saren and the search for answers thereafter.

Reapers exist. Regardless of what happened in the Bahak System, Kaidan knows this as Shepard knows this, and for a moment again they meet as eyes lock across the room and he refuses to let the court cast aspersions on the one thing he knows to be true: Reapers exist, and Shepard will fight them to the death.

The questions posed to him are loaded with politics and the driving need to find a scapegoat to assuage the Hegemony’s demands for blood. Did he ever had reason to question his Commander’s judgement? Did he observe anything during their recent encounter to infer that Shepard might be compromised?

He can only give them the truth. Yes, he did. Yes, he had. But--

The court dismisses him with no further questions, and Kaidan watches as the sky is grounded.

\--

This is their horizon: the one where things change.

The Reapers arrive, and when Cerberus attacks the Citadel the earth and the sky meet again in each other’s sights. Threatening a Councillor looks bad and they both know it, but Shepard’s eyes are ever on a bigger picture than Kaidan can see and that aim never wavers.

It is their first meeting since the court martial. The first words they exchange since that day on Horizon are “Lower your gun” and “You first,” and for a moment, neither of them move.

In another time, in another place, Kaidan might stand his ground and demand answers, might hold to his duty and order Shepard to stand down--but he doesn’t. He was with Shepard the last time a rogue faction attacked the Citadel, and he was on Virmire the day that Saren forced the Commander’s hand.

He remembers the determination that cut a path through a Citadel full of geth and put down an indoctrinated Spectre, and he sees it staring him down from the other side of the platform.

Has he questioned Shepard? Did he suspect Shepard of being compromised? Yes, he has, and yes, he did, but he knows above all else that Shepard will fight the Reapers to the death, and the Reapers are still out there.

The earth lets go and tries to fly.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Definitions (minus #3) courtesy of Google Search.


End file.
